Banking Standards Committee established
The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation have approved the regulation on the Banking Standards Committee that will become a new platform for a dialogue and collaboration between the regulators and banking businesses.
The Committee will hold its first meeting at the end of May. The key issues on the agenda are the mortgage lending standard and the organisation of supervision over compliance with it.
Standards are a promising form of soft regulation. Joint work on such documents will help the Bank of Russia communicate its opinion about optimal and suboptimal practices to market participants. Furthermore, in a dialogue with each other and the regulators, banks will thus be able to find the most balanced solutions taking into account consumers’ interests and preventing systemic risks.
The regulators have approved members of the Committee: representatives of banks and banking associations make two-thirds of it. As suggested by market participants, the Committee’s members are primarily banks with a high proportion of retail transactions.